RocketPropelledGiraffe

I just noticed that the "Forum Rules" Links, which are pinned in many of the sub-forums, do not work any more. Since there is a new set and thread of rules after the migration, I guess the old link to the rules just does not redirect properly. This is especially a problem in the "Welcome Aboard" section, which is propably the most important subforum to show the actual rules...

After my first test disaster with the chute, I successfully got into Mun orbit and returned. Accidentally burned normal instead of radial to avoid slamming into the Mun - Jeb blames Bill's calculations for this, and who am I to argue? Anyway, the resulting inclined orbit gave the three Kerbals some trouble with the return, but in the end everybody is safe at home now. I had fun playing the Alpha, thanks for sharing the links and the challenge!

I am not so sure, when you have little margin for error you want to be as relaxed as possible while working. Blowing a rocket or three for fun during leisure time certainly helps with that. And being relaxed ensures that you can work full power when a situation is really critical. If you are stressed all the time you might make unnecessary and costly mistakes - like, I don't know, missing a conversion from yards to meters and crashing a probe into Mars...

I am not sold on your points, why would you want to make career mode more restrictive. KSP is about enjoying the sandbox freedom and I think it is nice that this is somewhat carried over to career mode. Especially since they start to rework the "Explore" and other limiting one-time contracts into the milestone system, it seems that more freedom of choice is also the route Squad is following at the moment. The nice thing is that everybody can play career to his preference at the moment: Like to build planes? There is plenty of science on Kerbin alone to get far in the tech tree. Like to stretch yourself and send interplanetary probes as early as possible, even with limited parts available? You can do it and continue the tree with transmitted science. Like to be a completionist and get all the tech before going interplanetary? Explore the moons first, no problem. I agree that there is no reason why the R&D guys would be able to develop a better engine after they finally got the new temperature data from Jool. But this is really a general problem of science points and tech trees. Any way to improve this would be great, but on the other hand it should not be too restrictive... I think the major improvement possibilities are in the contract system. After the tech tree is complete, there have to be interesting contracts to keep the game exciting - but that is only fo the end game. At the start of career it might be possible to somehow connect the new parts with a series of developing contracts. Let's face it, new parts and better technology is only invented when there is a need for it. Example: The task is to explore Jool with a probe (1st contract), the engineering guys say they need more delta-v and a better engine, the R&D people say they need better scientific equipment. The 2nd and 3rd contract in this scenario would be to test a prototype engine and a prototype science equipment in Kerbin orbit to support the development. Then a 4th contract to test the actual probe you want to send. If all goes well (maybe prototypes would have a possiblity to fail randomly), you get the needed parts unlocked for the Jool mission and after doing this you have the 1st contract completed and also the parts available permanently. Does this sound reasonable or am I just babbling nonesense here? Not sure.

Maybe use a lander can instead, or plan the trip that no steerin input is needed after clearing the atmosphere. Then you could deactivate the probe core while burning, only use the electricity when turning the engine on/off and for the final orbital injection. There are some possibilities, not sure if it can be done though.

Pay close attention, the guy with the stiff answer is actually from Lockheed-Martin. The NASA people are all chuckling.

I'm not sure that you need one, it's not like my Kerbodyne-Lander Can rocket has any decent aerosynamics... You will never need a power source for this as long as you have a power generating engine. You are fine for ascent and ejection burn, just remember to deactivate the electricity in the probe core during the transfer flight and turn it back on shortly before you reach the Mun. I took the lander can because I figured the extra mass won't matter a lot when I bring the biggest tank. Plus it has a lot of torque.

I am pretty sure that the Boar and a probe core will get to the Mun, but I don't think it will get into orbit. I am curious to see what is possible.

Since I cannot sleep I did this real quick to get a first entry out. Simple three part rocket, two passengers. A regular Hohmann transfer takes us to Mun orbit in roughly 12 hours. My transfer was far from optimal, so it is easily possible to do it faster. I don't see any possibility to have fewer than three parts, neither the SRBs nor the Boar booster have sufficient delta-v.

Well, at least the NASA guy in the image looks like he's having a blast after he understands the question... He's propably playing

Since I am playing around in 0.13 for the Munshot Alpha Challenge, some nostalgia: This is what happens when you don't have launch clamps... Of course Jeb is cheerful, as always.

Since I never played the Alpha, I figured I should do this now. My first try to orbit Kerbin, just to get a feel for the parts, ended in disaster. I tore my chute off during reentry - the guys didn't make it... I would like to avoid this in the future, is there something special to pay attention to or was I just unlucky?

The sea level ISP of the vector is acually way better than most other engines, and it has good thrust. I guess you want the Vector's thrust taking you into the upper atmosphere and then have the superiour ISP of the Aerospike get you into orbit. The 10% better ISP high up is actually worth more than an ISP difference at sea level, because you don't need to take as much fuel to the high altitudes. It seems the efficient way of action would be to get a 1 t centered Aerospike that burns all the way to orbit and combine it with Vector driven liquid fuel boosters? No need to carry all those heavy Vectors all the way up, and once you dropped all your boosters the craft will be light enough to manage with the Aerospike thrust. Thanks a lot for the effort. I have not done any Eve missions in 1.0.5, but this really sparked some ideas for ascend vehicles. Edit: Now how do I give you rep in the new forums? Argh, so hard getting used to this...

Even though the gals look scared, this flight will easily get them all three down on Dres and back. The mission is still in progress, so I don't have many images just now. Just a quick peek inside the fairing to see the actual lander. It has all science instruments available in the Kraken Bay: Visiting Dres is always a good idea! When planning a trip, think of Dres and launch!

Edit: Well, I did not pay proper attention. Sorry about that, move along please!

Kasper, thanks for all the work you put into the migration - make sure to get some rest after the effort! I hope the remaining problems will be resolved and everything will be up and running again after the dust has settled. It will certainly take some time to get used to the new looks, but I think it will work out for most. After all it is just a forum displaying text, not really something worth raging about? Some constructive criticism: I noted that the sticky-tags are different in different forum sections. The red ones in the Announcement section are really nice and easy to see, the green pins in the General section sort of blend into the title text and I have to look twice to immediately see the first actual thread. In the Q&A section the pins are even moved all the way to the right and difficult to recognize at first glance. I think the sticky threads should always be easily visible - a tag that sticks out like the red one, or a separator between them and the live threads work well there. But at least the indicators should be the same in every section of the forums, in my opinion.

Are you going to the Moon or Mun? Starting from Kerbin it is easy to hit the Mun, just launch eastward at munrise, and after your gravity turn simply keep on burning straight at the Mun until you get an encounter. Works like a charm. I never played RSS, so I don't know what approach is needed to get to the actual Moon...

Same here. The thing is, a "Q&A"-style forum is not acutally a forum because you loose the progression of the developing discussion - or rather, it tends to prevent a discussion from developping at all. The style will work well for simple and standard questions - anything else will be better put in the "General" forum and people will adapt to that. Maybe that's exactly what Squad intended by moving the Q&A way down in the forum list?

Well, the Aerospike is more a single stage engine or spaceplane engine, not really for first stage ascending. The only reason we talk about it for staged rockets is because of Eve's thick atmosphere.... I usually use it for spaceplanes and single stage Laythe landers, it is ideal for those purposes. Eve ascend is more like a niche where it can possibly be useful, but certainly not the main use...

You can get to orbit in early career with a single stage rocket, it takes the T-45 engine and I think 9 FL200 tanks. Be sure to atach some fins and do your gravity turn gently, so you don't lose control. Good luck! With the 909 and multiple stages it is a lot easier, but you can get to orbit with the above setup in career just as well.

I don't have any data, at the moment I am just extrapolating and assuming - since the Aerospike's performance is very constant with pressure changes compared to the other engines it sounds reasonable. We would need more data to do more than just educated guessing - fourfa's ISP chart is one thing, overall thrust and TWR comparisons would also be needed. I would guess that at low altitudes the Aerospike is superiour, in the middle altitudes the Vector wins, and in the upper atmosphere maybe the Aerospike's high ISP could be better again, because you no longer need all the Vector's thrust. In a realistic test scenario, you will have to find a middle ground because you obviously have to carry all the engines with you all of the time - Do you really want to stage and drop your Aerospikes in the low atmosphere if you could benefit from their high ISP later? Like I said, it's all just guesswork at the moment...

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Don't forget the Vector weighs 4 tons compared to the Aerospike's 1 t. It has 6 times the thrust at 1 bar pressure, which is roughly at 10 km altitude. Do we have thrust data for the higher pressure regions in the lower atmosphere? It would seem the Aerospike wins for low altitudes, higher up it is a matter of how much thrust you actually need. If you have dropped most of your stages and don't need all the thrust of the Vector the Aerospike might still come out on top?

[quote name='MrOsterman']So here's my thing: I do a lot of crew transfers and I can never remember which Kerbal is which "class". So I'll dock at my station with the intention of transfering over a scientist only to find I sent the pilot. And it seems I have to go all the way back to the Kerbalnaut center to figure out if I did it all right when I'm putting my scientists to work vs making a pilot play with test tubes. [/QUOTE] Just as a side note: You know that you can check the professions of your crew in-flight by checking the craft and crew information in map mode? No need to go back to the astronaut center to check for profession...

I think waypoint manager also allows you to set custom waypoints on the map.